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Spiritual

religious order
Also known as: Fraticelli, Spiritual Franciscans, Zealot
Also called:
Spiritual Franciscan

Spiritual, member of an extreme group within the Franciscans, a mendicant religious order founded by St. Francis of Assisi in 1209; the Spirituals firmly espoused the austerity and poverty prescribed in the original Rule of St. Francis. Called the Fraticelli, they were opposed, to some extent, by St. Bonaventure, a leading Franciscan theologian, and some were condemned and executed as heretics. Among the Spiritual Franciscans, the works of the late 12th-century mystic Joachim of Fiore were influential, and because of their ideals the Spirituals became sources of inspiration to Protestant mystics of the 16th-century Reformation.

spirituality, the quality or state of being spiritual or of being attached to or concerned with religious questions and values broadly conceived. The term is also frequently used in a non- (or even anti-) religious sense to designate a preoccupation with or capacity for understanding fundamental moral, existential, or metaphysical questions, especially regarding the nature of the self (or soul, or person), the meaning of life, the nature of mind or consciousness, and the possibility of immortality.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Brian Duignan.